9 Selection and ranking procedures in reliability models

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter describes some important selection and ranking procedures that are relevant to reliability models. Selection procedures are available in the literature for various parametric families of distributions. Many of these distributions serve as appropriate models for the life length of a unit. Only a few of these such as exponential, gamma, and Weibull distributions are concerened. Besides some nonparametric and distribution-free procedures, selection procedures for restricted families of distributions such as the increasing failure rate (IFR) and increasing failure rate on the average (IFRA) families which are of importance in reliability problems are emphasized. The chapter discusses the formulation of the basic problem of selecting the best population using the indifference zone (IZ) and subset selection (SS) approaches, procedures for different generalized goals using both IZ and SS approaches, nonparametric procedures for selecting in terms of α-quantiles, procedures for Bernoulli distributions, procedures for selection from restricted families of distributions, and procedures for IFR and increasing failure rate average (IFRA) families.